Stanza. A stanza is a group of lines in a poem. Stanzas are usually separated by spaces from other groups of lines. As you read, note the number and arrangement of stanzas in each poem. With what does each stanza begin and end?
Tone. In a literary work, tone is the writer’s or speaker’s emotional attitude toward the subject or the reader. Examples of the different tones that a writer might create include familiar, playful, sarcastic, serious, and sincere. As you read, think about the attitudes the authors of the poems may reveal. What words and phrases in these poems reveal the authors’ tone? How would you describe the tone of each poem in your own words?
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• “Sympathy” was published in 1899 in Lyrics of the Hearthside, a collection of poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Written during a time in America when a well-paying job and a college education were luxuries unavailable to most African Americans, it echoes the frustration of a talented young black poet. Credited for capturing the true voice of the African American in his poetry, Dunbar set the stage for the emergence of black artists and writers living in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s, an era known as the Harlem Renaissance. Although best known for his poems written in black folk language, Dunbar also wrote poems like “Sympathy,” demonstrating his mastery of standard English verse.
• Maya Angelou’s poem “Caged Bird” was published 84 years after “Sympathy” in a poetry collection titled Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? She chose the title I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings for the first book in her five-book collection of autobiographical works, which shares her experiences of growing up black in the American South in the 1930s and beyond.
Tuskegee History Class, 1902. Frances Benjamin Johnston. Library of Congress.
Write about a time in your life when you didn’t feel free to be yourself in words or actions. How did this make you feel? What did you do?
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